The Challenge of the Leaders
by hammy ham ham
Summary: You stare at the imposing building, the hair on the back of your neck becoming erect at the ominous markings dotting the walls, sinister symbols.The door opens with a creak, beckoning you into the abyss echoing against the walls. Swallowing, you enter...


_You stare at the imposing building, the hair on the back of your neck becoming erect at the ominous markings dotting the walls, sinister symbols._

_The door opens with a creak, beckoning you into the abyss echoing against the walls. Swallowing, you enter the door frame, the heavy rectangle of wood slamming behind you, leaving you without enough light to so much as see your feet._

_You place a hand on the wall to hold yourself as you walk through the maze of corridors, dead ends and T sections. You almost give up hope of ever finding your way out of the labyrinth. Just as you prepare to turn back the way you came, a dim glow flits across your vision._

_Like a starved man to an oasis you walk toward the glow, breath hitching as it expands with every step, the source plainly around the corner. Like a moth to a flame you turn toward the source of the quenching radiance._

_The light is revealed as a weak ceiling lamp, illuminating a thin table, and a grizzly creature sitting on a spindly, Gothic chair. Thick flaps cover the creature's face like a curtain of oozing blood, the same long streams falling from its thin arms and legs. A deep voice echoes against the walls,_

So, you made it, and you're pants aren't even damp. Good, it's been a while since fresh meat made it to my chamber...

_The creature sits slightly more erect, the crimson bands parting to show a pair of menacing orbs, eying you hungrily, amusedly. You flinch in the gaze, instinctively reaching for the belt containing one of your faithful companions. A sickening sound fills your ears, an abomination of a chuckle._

Don't bother, you have no need for them. I mean no harm... So long as you _adhere _to my rules...

_Your hand stiffly lowers to your side, sweat beginning to trickle down your brow in a thin stream, falling to the floor in tiny droplets, darkening the dingy dirt playing the part of 'floor'. One fell on the unlabeled tin cans stacked haphazardly to your right, making a metallic 'ping' sound._

Sit, sit... This shall take time, patience...

_The sound of wind enters at the edges of your hearing when something knocks your knees out, your weight falling back onto the chair that had knocked you over. A chair that had been absent when you first entered._

_The creature sneers slightly, sharp fangs reflecting the light back into your eye. You feel your upper legs tighten, and realize, with more than an ounce of shock and disgust, that you nearly wet yourself at the macabre sight. 'Get a hold of yourself, it's just a really creepy pokemon. It can't hurt you, not in a league building.'_

_The creature only smiles as the thought crosses your mind, a kind of weight brushing against the outermost edges of your conscious. Shock surges through every cell in your body at the alien presence prodding at your shield in the same way a gaze to your back does. No movement was ever made by the creature._

So you want to challenge the Elite Four, right? Become champion and all that?

_The sentence causes your concentration to shirk, and, against your most fervent commands, something warm begins trickling down your leg. You feel as if ice water is being poured down the back of your shirt, following the line of your spine perfectly. You gulp again at the amused twitch at the corner of the creature's mouth at the sensation._

It isn't an easy life, you know... Not easy at all... But then again, if it was, then they wouldn't be at all hard to beat, would they... No, no...

_With a deft flick of its wrist a surge of brilliant violet energy flies out of the creature's hand, shooting toward your chest at a psychotic pace. The energy hits you like a hot poker, forcing a yell of anguish from your throat as it begins to grow slowly, ever so slowly. First it spreads to your shoulders, then your navel, and then it pools out until it encompasses you. _

_Your nerves began to numb from the heat, the sensation deadening from a searing blaze to that of scalding water, and then that to a scorching summer's day. You realize just what is happening- your skin is slowly being burned away, killing the nerves in wave after wave of heat._

Not that you'll ever know, of course.

_At the sickening voice comes a disturbance in the air. A heavy, anxious feel sets in around you, the air weighing down on your body like a thick fog, clouding and dulling your senses. Your conscious does its best to fight off the encroaching grogginess slipping through the cracks of your mental walls. _

_However, like the hundreds before it, your mind at last succumbs to the siren song of those thin tendrils of sleep. Your eyes flicker lower and lower with each second until they close completely. The last thing you here is that same dark chuckle._

_You dive deeper into the realm of dreams, logic taking a back seat to fantasy._

_Your body becomes utterly numb as the last inklings of reality flee and the flames eat away the last of your nerves. _

_You aren't even aware as liquid silver pours out of the walls, hovering around you in a kind of mistake dance. It shapes itself into four pieces, all floating around you, as if satellites in orbit. Each of the pieces has a pair on the opposing side, all of them turning in perfect sequence._

_Nor do you even feel it as your body begins a terrific transformation. It begins to shrink and shrink and shrink until it is no larger than a paper doll, everything in perfect proportion, but on a much, much smaller scale._

_You never see the sadistic grin cross the creature's face as the metal encloses around you, forming a dark, noiseless cylinder. The cylinder jerks in midair before it smoothly glides to the floor, where it joins the others stacked against the walls, looking as innocent as an of the other 'unlabeled cans'._

_And you knew no more._

_------_

This is one of those things that comes from the deep recesses of my mind. It started out as something where the trainer would run fleeing for his life with 'the creature' cackling behind, but then one of my muses shoved the others out of the way and simply wouldn't let me have a happy ending. Harlem just _is_ that way. Alas, the guy's turned traitor on my other muses, so my updates have been _painfully_ slow. Sorry- blame him!

If my scanner decides to work, I can upload a picture of 'the creature.' I like the way I came up with the character design, although you probably have a _completely_ different idea than I do about his appearance. Nye.


End file.
